Featured Issue: Immigration Detention and Alternatives to Detention
Update: On March 14, 2025, AILA released a statement in response to the Trump Administration resuming the practice of detaining families pending their court proceedings in the detention facility in Karnes County, TX, and indicating its plans to use a second facility in Dilley, TX, for family detention.
AILA calls on Congress to significantly reduce and phase out the use of immigration detention for immigration enforcement purposes. Detention is costly, leads to inefficiencies in processing cases, and has a long track record of human rights abuses. Community-based case management services and legal representation is more humane and should be offered to noncitizens to support their compliance of immigration obligations.
Contents
By the Numbers
- Book Outs/Books In: The Office of Homeland Security Statistics provides data on the number of migrants who are released from CBP custody to proceed with removal cases, transfers to ICE detention, and transfers to Health & Human Services (HHS). It also provides initial book-in data on ICE detention.
- Detention: For FY2024, Congress has provided funding to detain a daily average of 41,500 noncitizens at a cost of approximately $3.4 billion. During FY2023, Congress provided funding to detain a daily average of 34,000 noncitizens at a cost of approximately $2.9 billion. A December 2024 ICE memo in response to Congressional requests for information noted that increasing detention capacity by more than 60,000 beds will require a funding increase of approximately $3.2 billion dollars.
- Current Population: Per ICE, on December 8, 2024, there were 39,062 people in custody and on January 22, 2025, there were 39,703. For future data, see bi-weekly data posted on the ICE website under “Fiscal Year 2025 statistics” here.
- Daily Costs: Projected average daily costs of detaining an adult noncitizen: $164.65. The actual cost of detaining a noncitizen varies based on geographic region, length of detention, facility type, etc. A recent ICE memo in response to the costs of expanding detention noted that they expect a 5% inflationary increase from FY2024 enacted bed costs.
- Deaths at Adult Detention Centers - AILA supplies a continually updated list of ICE press releases announcing deaths in adult immigration detention. Note: there can be delays in ICE’s reporting of deaths and there have been instances of seriously ill individuals released from ICE custody, whose deaths are not included in this list.
- ICE Alternatives to Detention: For FY2024, Congress provided approximately $470 million in funding for ICE’s Alternatives to Detention (ADT) program. This is an increase from approximately $443 million in FY2023 in which 194,427 people were enrolled.
- Daily Costs of ICE ATD: Average daily cost for participants enrolled in ICE’s Intensive Appearance Supervision Program (ISAP): $8.00
- Community-Based Case Management: The FEMA/CRCL Case Management Pilot Program (CMPP), also known as the “Alternatives to Detention Grant Program,” received $15 million in continued funding for FY2024. Prior to January 20, 2025, it was operating in five cities.
- Average daily cost of providing case management for individual family members by a community-based organization (2018 pilot): $14.05
- Legal Representation: There is no right to a government-provided attorney in immigration court and 70 percent of detained persons face proceedings without counsel. There is a pilot program that serves adult individuals with mental disabilities. Congress did not provide any funding for adult legal representation for FY2024.
AILA’s Recommendations to Congress
- Reduce detention funding to at least 25,000 average daily population or less.
- Explicitly prohibit detention funding from being used to detain families and children in custodial settings.
- Provide continued funding community-based case management programs outside of ICE such as the Case Management Pilot Program (CMPP) operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL)
- Conduct robust oversight of past congressional appropriations transparency requirements and continue to require ICE to disclose and publish information relating to detention contracts, inspection process and reports, detention data, and policies for the alternatives to detention program.
Background
Created in 2002, Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) has over 22,000 full-time employees, with a total annual budget of more than $9 billion. The agency has three core operational directorates: Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA). Housed within the Department of Homeland Security, ICE joins Customs & Border Protection (CBP) in making up the nation’s largest police force.
Immigration enforcement, including taking noncitizens into custody, is the largest single area of responsibility for ICE. ICE detains noncitizens arrested from the interior of the country and those transferred from the border. Twenty-years ago, the average daily population of detained immigrants was approximately 7,000. During the first Trump Administration, it reached a height of 50,000 average daily population. Regardless of the circumstances of their first encounter with authorities, noncitizens are detained across America in a sprawling network of private and public detention facilities. Most of these facilities operate through contracts between ICE (or, less commonly, the U.S. Marshals Service) and localities for the purposes of detaining noncitizens. In some cases, localities later sub-contract services for operating detention facilities to private prison companies. In other instances, localities reserve space in local, county, or state jails and prisons for the purposes of detaining immigrants. In all cases, localities are financially incentivized to detain individuals to increase profit margins from contracts. One key part of the financial equation is the use of noncitizens to clean and maintain facilities in exchange for $1 a day.
Immigration detention facilities, regardless of the type of contracts, have been the sites of serious and repeated allegations of abuse, including allegations of sexual assault, violations of religious freedom, medical neglect, and the punitive use of solitary confinement. In 2020, the U.S. had the highest number of deaths in ICE adult detention since 2005. Several deaths in custody have been found to have been preventable. Conditions in ICE custody have been described as “barbaric” and “negligent” by DHS experts.
Civil immigration detention works mainly to facilitate deportation. While ICE has the authority to allow most noncitizens to continue with their removal cases on the outside of custody, it often defaults to detention based on alleged “flight risk or threat to public safety.” The vagueness of these concepts frequently works against the liberty interests of noncitizens and there is generally a lack of uniformity when it comes to these discretionary releases. Only a certain portion of the overall noncitizen population must be detained under “mandatory detention” laws and even those individuals may be released based on certain exceptions.
Lastly, because immigration detention is considered “civil,” indigent noncitizens are not generally provided counsel. As a result, representation rates for noncitizens in detention are as low as 14% and directly correlate with the ability to secure release or long-term protection.
Reports and Briefings
- "No Human Being Should Be Held There": The Mistreatment of LGBTQ and HIV-Positive People in U.S. Federal Immigration Jails
- Physicians for Human Rights: Endless Nightmare”: Torture and Inhuman Treatment in Solitary Confinement in U.S. Immigration Detention
- Harvard University Press Release: New Report Documents the Mental and Physical Harm Experienced by Children in Immigration Detention
- AILA Policy Brief: Case Management: An Effective and Humane Alternative to Detention - November 2, 2022
- AILA Policy Brief: Moving The Nation Forward by Leaving Immigration Detention Behind - March 25, 2021
- The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA): Emergency Medical Responses at US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention Centers in California -November 29, 2023
- Notable findings include: a number of EMS calls for pregnant people at Otay Mesa; a shockingly low number of 911 calls for psychiatric emergencies, despite the high number of complaints of serious mental health issues in the detention centers; nearly a third of all detained people had an abnormal vital sign when EMS encountered them, a disturbing trend given the association between abnormal vital signs and deaths in ICE custody; and finally, the number of emergency calls that the authors could find in EMS systems was significantly lower than the number of ICE-reported medical emergencies, a serious discrepancy that calls into question why ICE facilities aren’t calling 911 more frequently when there is an emergency happening.
- Black Alliance for Just Immigration: Uncovering the Truth: Violence and Abuse Against Black Migrants in Immigration Detention - October 2022
- Oxfam America and the Tahirih Justice Center: Surviving Deterrence: How U.S. Asylum Deterrence Policies Normalize Gender-Based Violence, October 11, 2022
- Law Professor César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, TED Talk, The US can move past immigration prisons—and towards justice, July 27, 2022
- Alternatives to Detention: An Overview – American Immigration Council Fact Sheet, March 17, 2022
- Community Support for Migrants Navigating the U.S. Immigration System - February 26, 2021
- American Immigration Council Special Report: "Measuring In Absentia Removal in Immigration Court," Ingrid Eagly, Esq. and Steven Shafer, Esq. - January 28, 2021
Government Reports
- DHS Office of Inspector General: website has search function to view ICE detention audits, inspections, and evaluations completed by DHS OIG.
- ICE FOIA Library: Holds detention facility contracts, facility reviews, among other required posting information.
- U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO): Agency within the legislative branch that provides auditing, evaluative, and investigative services for the United States Congress. Website has search function to view audits done of ICE detention programs and policies.
- Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman Annual Report– June 20, 2023. As of January 29, 2025, the 2024 Annual Report had not been published.
- DHS Office of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Recommendation and Investigation Memo Collection: CRCL investigates abuses in immigration detention. CRCL issues recommendations to the relevant DHS Component aimed at addressing any civil rights or civil liberties concerns identified as part of its investigation.
- DHS Advisory Committee Final Report on Family Residential Centers - September 30, 2016.
Legislative and Administrative Advocacy
- The Case Management Pilot Program: A Humane, Effective Alternative to Immigration Detention - August 15, 2024
- Senators Send Letter Urging Appropriators to Include Funding for ATD - May 15, 2024
- AILA Statement to Senate on ICE's Use of Solitary Confinement - April 16, 2024
- AILA Sends Letter to White House Opposing Family Detention – March 13, 2023
- AILA and Partners Send Letter to White House Urging Closure of ICE Detention Sites - November 21, 2022
- Members of Congress Send Letter to DHS on Access to Counsel - November 3, 2022
- Over 100 House Democrats Send Letter to DHS to Halt Immigration Detention - March 10, 2022
Browse the Featured Issue: Immigration Detention and Alternatives to Detention collection
District Court Orders DHS to Stop Detaining Certain Minors in Hotels for More Than Three Days
The district court ordered DHS to stop placing minors detained pursuant to a public health order under Title 42 in hotels, except for brief hotel stays of no longer than 72 hours in the process of expelling them from the United States. (Flores, et al. v. Barr, et al., 9/21/20)
House Committee on Homeland Security Releases Report Saying ICE Detention Facilities Fail to Meet Basic Standards of Care
The House Committee on Homeland Security released a report finding that DHS fails to effectively identify and correct deficient conditions at ICE detention facilities, and that facilities frequently fail to meet basic standards of care, including mental and physical care of the migrants in custody.
AILA and Partners Send Letter Urging Congressional Leaders to Reject Extra Funding for CBP and ICE
AILA joined over 200 organizations in sending a letter urging congressional leaders to reject any anomalies or any other funding mechanisms that would increase funding for CBP or ICE in a FY2021 Continuing Resolution, stating that “filling these agencies’ coffers” even higher “would be reckless.”
Organizations Call for Immediate Investigation into Reports of Unnecessary Procedures and Inadequate Care in ICE Facility
In a joint statement, AILA and the American Immigration Council respond to reports of inadequate medical care and unnecessary hysterectomies in ICE detention.
DHS Proposed Rule on Use and Collection of Biometrics
DHS proposed rule on the use and collection of biometrics in the enforcement and administration of immigration laws. Comments on the rule are due on 10/13/20, with comments on associated proposed form revisions due 11/10/20. (85 FR 56338, 9/11/20)
DHS OIG Says CBP Should Award a Medical Services Contract Quickly to Ensure No Gap in Service
DHS OIG released a management alert stating that CBP’s current contract for medical services expires on 9/29/20, and that as of 9/3/20, CBP had not issued a solicitation for a new contract. A lapse in the contract, per the alert, “could jeopardize the health and safety of migrants in CBP custody.”
DHS OIG Finds Five Texas CBP Facilities Generally Complied with National TEDS Standards
DHS OIG performed unannounced inspections of five CBP facilities in Laredo and San Antonio areas of Texas in February 2020 and found that the facilities appeared to be generally operating in compliance with the National Standards on Transport, Escort, Detention, and Search (TEDS).
House Committee on Oversight and Reform Releases Report on Mistreatment of Detained Immigrants
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform released a report on for-profit contractors’ detention of immigrants. The committee inspected several detention facilities and found deficient sanitation/mismanagement of infectious diseases and that detainees died after receiving inadequate medical care.
ICE Provides Information on Legal Access in Detention
ICE provided information to assist immigration legal representatives with clients who are detained in ICE custody, including information on how to communicate with detained individuals and with ICE, available legal resources available to detained individuals, and contact information.
CA1 Overturns Preliminary Injunction Against ICE Arrests in Massachusetts’ Courthouses
The court concluded that the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate that they were likely to succeed in showing that the INA implicitly incorporates a common law privilege against civil arrests for individuals attending court on official business. (Ryan, et al. v. ICE, et al., 9/1/20)
AILA and Partners Submit Amicus Brief on Barriers for Detained, Pro Se Asylum Seekers
AILA and partners submitted an amicus brief in the Third Circuit arguing that because of the hurdles detained, pro se asylum seekers face in presenting evidence to support their claims, the BIA must factor a pro se respondent’s detention into analysis of whether evidence is “reasonably available.”
GAO Says ICE Should Enhance Its Use of Facility Oversight Data and Management of Detainee Complaints
GAO examined what ICE does with oversight inspection data and information from detainee complaints and found that ICE doesn’t comprehensively analyze inspection or complaint information to identify trends in deficiencies, and that ICE doesn’t have reasonable assurance that complaints are addressed.
DHS OIG Says Children Waited for Extended Periods in Vehicles to Be Reunified with Their Parents at ICE’s Port Isabel Detention Center
DHS OIG confirmed that due to ICE’s lack of preparedness and underestimation of required resources, some children were held in vehicles or detention cells for extended periods of time, in many cases overnight, before being reunited with their parents at the Port Isabel Detention Center in July 2018.
ICE Final Rule on Changes Applicable to Surety Bond Companies
ICE final rule which requires surety companies seeking to overcome a bond breach determination to exhaust administrative remedies, and which sets forth “for cause” standards so that ICE may decline bonds from companies that do not cure their deficient performance. (85 FR 45968, 7/31/20)
CBP Provides Summary of Medical Implementation Plan
CBP provided a summary of its plans for UFO and USBP to enhance their medical support efforts for individuals in CBP custody and to implement the Enhanced Medical Directive issued by CBP in December 2019. The Implementation Plans include a Concept of Operations and Standard Operating Procedures.
DHS Reissues Privacy Impact Assessment for CBP and ICE DNA Collection
DHS updated a previously issued PIA to provide notice to the public of biometric DNA collection from individuals detained by ICE and CBP and the associated privacy risks. DHS reissued the PIA to note that CBP Office of Field Operations is expanding the minimum age for DNA collection from 18 to 14.
AILA and Partners Urge DHS and ICE to Release Detained Families Together
AILA and other organizations sent a letter to DHS and ICE urging the immediate release of all families—parents together with their children—held at ICE family detention centers and to not use the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to deploy its family separation policy again.
DHS Inspector General Testifies on Children in CBP Custody
DHS IG Joseph V. Cuffari testified before the House Committee on Homeland Security on children in CBP custody. The testimony includes a discussion of conditions on the southwest border, investigations of deaths of children while in CBP custody, medical care procedures, and improper spending.
GAO Says CBP Needs to Increase Oversight of Funds, Medical Care, and Reporting of Deaths
GAO found that CBP has consistently overlooked health screening policies for detainees and that it violated the law by using emergency funds to enhance detainees' medical care for other items. GAO also found that CBP lacks reliable data on deaths and did not report this data to Congress as directed.
Government Accountability Project Sends Letter to Congressional Leaders on Whistleblower Disclosures Regarding Mismanagement of ICE Detention Faciliti
The Government Accountability Project (GAP) sent a letter to congressional leaders summarizing information from whistleblowers that addresses the mismanagement of COVID-19 issues by Lasalle Corrections. The disclosures highlight ongoing and imminent dangers to workers, immigrants, and public safety.
Department of the Treasury Notice on Immigration Bond Interest Rates
Department of the Treasury notice that for the period beginning 7/1/20 and ending 9/30/20, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Immigration Bond interest rate is 0.15 per centum per annum. (85 FR 41097, 7/8/20)
DHS OIG Releases Observations from Unannounced Inspections of ICE Facilities in 2019
ICE houses detainees at roughly 200 facilities nationwide. During 2019, DHS OIG made 4 unannounced inspections at 4 adult detention facilities and found violations of ICE detention standards that undermined the protection of detainees’ rights and the provision of a safe and healthy environment.
District Judge Orders ICE to Release All Children Currently Held in Detention
Due to COVID-19, a district court judge ordered that all children currently held at ICE Family Residential Centers (FRCs) for more than 20 days must be released by 7/17/20, stating that FRCs are “on fire” and there is no more time for half measures. (Flores, et al. v. Barr, et al., 6/26/20)
Advocates Demand Release of Individuals Endangered in Texas Detention Facility
On June 23, 2020, the law firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP, through their pro bono work with the Immigration Justice Campaign, filed a group habeas petition demanding the release of individuals detained in the Joe Corley Detention Facility in Conroe, Texas due to the conditions at this ICE facility.
AILA and Partners Urge New Mexico Governor Lujan Grisham to Stop ICE Detention Facility Transfers
AILA and partners sent a letter urging New Mexico Governor Lujan Grisham to prevent transfers and book-ins to ICE contract immigration detention centers in New Mexico, particularly the Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral, in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19.